Where Writers Write: Maria Romasco Moore

Welcome to another installment of TNBBC's Where Writers Write!

Where Writers Write is a series in which authors showcase their writing spaces using short form essay, photos, and/or video. As a lover of books and all of the hard work that goes into creating them, I thought it would be fun to see where the authors roll up their sleeves and make the magic happen. 

This is Maria Romasco Moore. 

Maria's stories have appeared in The Collapsar, Diagram, Hobart, Interfictions, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, and the Lightspeed anthology Women Destroy Science Fiction. She is an alumni of the Clarion West Writers Workshop and has an MFA from Southern Illinois University. She currently lives in Columbus, Ohio with her partner Axel and cat Gamma Ray. She likes silent films, aquariums, and other tiny windows into other worlds. Learn more at https://mariaromascomoore.com/

Where Maria Romasco Moore Writes

Often, when I try to write at home, the dishes get done instead. Clean dishes aren’t an entirely undesirable outcome, but no one is going to publish them in print.

Whenever possible, I like to write far away from household chores. I write on trains, scribble ideas in notebooks on buses or subways. I’ve written in laundromats, at softball games, and during classes I am teaching.  

Sometimes I write outside, on my $30 ebay junkmachine (an alphasmart) which is terrible for editing but perfect for freewheeling first drafts and is unaffected by the glare of the sun. Down the street in the middle of a tiny traffic circle is a miniature park with a bench. Sunlight through leaves is the best office decoration I could ask for.

When I really need to concentrate, I toddle over to that old standard: the coffeeshop. My current favorite is The Bitter Barista. It is a pleasant walk from to my apartment and is excellent for dog and passerby watching. They technically have wifi but I pretend they don’t.

I go to the library almost as frequently as the old men who are there every day from dusk to dawn. My local branch has had new construction going up across from it for the last year. I remain willfully ignorant of the wifi password.

I started writing my forthcoming book, Ghostographs, during a one month stay at an old house in Pittsburgh. It was a sort of artist/writer’s collective which called itself the Cyberpunk Apocalypse. Only one out of three bathrooms in the house worked (and even in that one, the toilet seat had fallen off and had to be balanced precariously on the bowl). There was a hole in the ceiling, no heat, and almost definitely black mold. I huddled beside a space heater in a small third floor room. The task of attempting to clean the place was too monumental to consider, and there was (despite the lack of other amenities) a dishwasher, so I was not tempted to do chores and I got along just fine

Someday, perhaps, I will live in a fancy apartment with a dishwasher of its own and then when I try to write at home, the clothes will get folded, and the baseboards will be dusted, and all the books in my collection will be organized first by title, then by author, then by color, then by how much they did or didn’t make me cry.